The present invention relates to a technique for use with a system including a large number of computers such as a blade server for constructing a job operation environment by use of a boot disk image.
To initiate operation of a job using computers such as a Web three-tier job, it is required to construct an operation environment in which a job intrinsic application and job intrinsic data are deployed. The job operation environment is constructed in the following procedure. First, there is determined a computer to conduct operation of the job. Next, an operating system (OS), device drivers, application programs and patch programs to remove faults of the operating system and to expand functions of the operating system are installed in the computer. Thereafter, patch programs to remove faults and to expand functions of the application programs are installed. After the application programs and the patch programs are installed, it is required in some cases to restart the operating system to execute setup processing of the programs and/or to execute program initiation processing.
In general, to construct one operation environment, the procedure to install programs and patches and the procedure to restart the operating system described above are required to be conducted several times. That is, it takes a long period of time to construct an operation environment. Therefore, it has been a common practice that, at a point of time considerably before the job operation start, the operation system, application programs, and patch programs were installed in the computer to beforehand create a disk image using a disk of the computer. At a point of time near the job operation start, the disk image was deployed in the computer to thereby reduce the period of time required to construct the job operation environment. Technical articles associated with the technique include JP-A-11-003297.